Page 31 of The Kingpin’s Bride

He pulled back slowly. My lips felt swollen. My breathing was ragged. I must have looked destroyed. I felt destroyed.

The judge closed the folder with a sharp snap. “Congratulations. The alliance is sealed.”

Dark applause rose around us. I swayed. Matteo’s hand stayed on my bare waist, steadying me, claiming me, reminding every watching pair of eyes that I now belonged to him in a way that paperwork and rings and forced vows could never fully capture.

Then an old man stood near the front. Don Salvatore Esposito. I recognized the man from the rare times Dario had spoken about the real power in this city. I’d seen him in After Dark before, and I was terrified of him. His voice carried through the club like gravel, and the applause died instantly. “One final condition. To secure the legitimacy of this union and bind the new seat firmly within the Five Families… the marriage must be consummated. Here. Now. In front of us all.”

My body jerked like I’d been struck. Matteo’s grip on my waist tightened until it bordered on pain. The crowd didn’t cheer. They didn’t laugh. They simply watched. Hungry. Waiting.

This was the true price of whatever power Matteo had just bought with my body. I looked up at him, silently begging.

His dark gray eyes had changed. The cold mask had cracked. What looked out at me now was darker. Hungrier. Something close to rage and possession… and it scared me.

He leaned down. His lips brushed my ear as he lifted me into his arms like I weighed nothing. My naked body pressed against his suit, soft and completely exposed to every eye in the room.

“You’re mine now,” he whispered, voice low and dark, control slipping with every word. “Every inch of you. And they’re going to watch me prove it. Sorry, baby.”

My naked body pressed against the hard lines of his suit, the chains between my wrists trapped against his chest. Every eye in After Dark was on us. The air was thick with expensive smoke, perfume, and the kind of hungry silence that only falls when something irreversible is about to happen.

His mouth brushed the shell of my ear, voice low enough that only I could hear it over the dying bass.

“Look at them,” he ordered while he grabbed my chin and forced me to look out onto the crowd.

“Please,” I whispered against his collar, the word cracked and useless. “Not here. Not in front of them. Please.”

“They ordered it. I accepted the seat. You accepted the vows. Now they’re going to watch me take what’s mine,” he muttered.

He carried me to the low black platform they used for private dances, and set me down. The wood was cold and slightly sticky against my bare ass. My bound hands rested in my lap, chains rattling with every uncontrollable tremor that ran through me.

My husband stood over me for a long second, looking down at the body he had just bought for thirty-five million dollars, and something dark and hungry moved behind his gray eyes.

There was no recognition there. No softness. Just assessment, the way a man might study a new piece of property before deciding how to use it.

Then he started undoing his gold, crown-shaped cufflinks. Slowly.

One, then the other. He slipped them into his pocket without looking away from me. Rolled his sleeves up over the dense black ink that covered his forearms. The deliberate, almost leisurely way he prepared himself made the crowd lean forward as one. I heard someone in the front row inhale sharply. Another man muttered a low curse. Somewhere in the dark, fabric shifted as men adjusted themselves in their seats.

My husband did not react. He simply continued, cold and precise, as if the dozens of watching eyes meant nothing. He reached for his belt.

The sound of the buckle was louder than the music had ever been. He drew the black, smooth leather free in one long pull and dropped it to the stage floor with a soft slap. Then he went to his knees between my spread thighs.

I froze. “What are you doing?”

“Quiet.” The word was soft. Absolute. He looked up at me from between my legs, dark eyes almost black. “They’re watching. You’re going to let them see how your body answers to your new husband.”

His hands settled on my knees and pushed them wider. The chains between my wrists clinked as I tried, uselessly, to close my legs. He held me open with easy strength, thumbs stroking the soft skin of my inner thighs in slow, almost clinical circles. The touch was steady, controlled, and somehow more terrifying for its lack of heat. He was not frantic. He was not overcome. He was simply methodical, and my body did not know how to fight that.

Then he leaned in and dragged the flat of his tongue through the center of me in one long, filthy stroke.

My entire body jerked. A broken sound tore out of my throat before I could stop it. He did it again, slower this time, tasting me with deliberate thoroughness while the entire underworld watched.

The tip of his tongue circled my clit, then dipped lower, pushing just inside me where I was tight and untouched. Cool air hit the wetness he left behind. Several men in the front rows shifted harder in their seats. One exhaled a rough, appreciative curse. Another’s hand disappeared below the table edge and stayed there.

Matteo Ventura ignored them. He licked into me again, deeper, then sealed his mouth over my clit and sucked. Hard. My back arched off the platform.

The chains rattled. A helpless, needy sound slipped past my lips and the watching men groaned in answer, low and collective. Matteo’s eyes never left my face. He watched every flicker of reluctant reaction with cold focus while he worked me with his tongue, slow, then fast, then slow again, building a ruthless rhythm that made my thighs start to shake around his head.

One of his hands slid up my stomach and closed over my breast, pinching a nipple between two fingers and rolling it until the sharp sting mixed with the wet heat of his mouth. I tried to twist away. He simply followed, never breaking the seal of his lips, never giving me even a second of mercy. The cold precision of it… Heat began to pool low and unwanted between my legs.